Texas Republican to Challenge Shapleigh in Senate Race

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Donald “Dee” Margo was an underdog from the moment he announced plans to run against 10-year incumbent State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh.

The 54-year-old insurance company executive is well-funded and well-connected. But he’s a Republican running against a popular Democrat in a Democratic stronghold.

The long-shot odds haven’t hurt Margo’s fundraising, with his campaign coffers surpassing $280,000 as of mid-July. First lady Laura Bush is scheduled to join him at an October fundraiser.

Shapleigh has answered back by raising about $220,000 as of mid-July.

But money and party ties aren’t likely to make a difference, said James Henson, who teaches politics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Despite the odds, El Paso is a 60 percent Democratic city, Margo said he is running because he is fed up with what he sees as Shapleigh’s inability to get things done for El Paso.

“I became very frustrated over our inability to accomplish major items, major issues for El Paso,” the first-time candidate said. “We’ve been going down to Austin for years … and I just got tired of hearing how bad it was down there.”

Margo, who has ties to the national Republican Party and friends in the White House, has complained that Shapleigh’s bickering with Senate colleagues has made it impossible for El Paso to have a voice in important policy and spending decisions. The state Senate is controlled by Republicans and Shapleigh is among the most liberal of the Democrats in that chamber.

Margo’s campaign, which omits any mention of the Republican Party on campaign materials, has also challenged Shapleigh’s record on what it considers his failures to reduce property taxes, to win a funding guarantee for a proposed four-year Texas Tech medical school in El Paso and his support for the creation of a state income tax. Margo has even dubbed Shapleigh “Senator Income Tax” for his unpopular support of a state income tax.

Shapleigh says a state income tax would help resolve many funding problems in the state and could help reduce skyrocketing property taxes.

In a recent flurry of sharply worded press releases, Margo also claimed that Shapleigh is using a “say anything to win” strategy and lying to El Pasoans about his record. Margo called those efforts “deceitful.”

Shapleigh, a 53-year-old El Paso lawyer known for occasionally butting heads with opponents, responded last week, noting that Margo has attacked him without spelling out what he’ll do in office.

“I believe our record has been the best of any El Paso senator,” Shapleigh said.

The well-known incumbent said had he done a bad job, he would have gotten an opponent before now.

“When people believe they are served well, then there are not campaigns,” Shapleigh said. He suspects that the Margo campaign is the product of “a segment of the very conservative” in El Paso who want a race.

But for Margo to have a fighting chance in November he will need to have a strong Republican showing, win many of El Paso’s independent voters and “peel off some of the Democrats,” Rocha said.

Henson doesn’t see that happening.

“I would be very surprised if this (seat) goes anywhere,” he said.